


Courtyard

by ampworks



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, mentions of cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 14:27:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10946418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ampworks/pseuds/ampworks
Summary: "Dozens of corpses hanging from the ceiling; what would be a nightmare to most was a dream to him."Harlow, a cannibalistic variant with a fear of open spaces is chased into Eddie's clutches, forcing him to evade capture while also avoiding returning outside.





	Courtyard

**Author's Note:**

> I almost lost this so I thought I'd post it somewhere. Something I wrote way back in 2014 to appease my family so they would stop yelling at me to write stuff for them (it worked I just wrote about cannibalism until they stopped asking,) so some details might be redundant, since it was intended to be read by people who haven't played Outlast.
> 
> Harlow is that variant from the Prison Block who says "Said we shouldn't hurt you. Is what he said. But when the cat's away... Hmm... Mmm..." gross boy. i love him.

He was finally inside again.

Once he made sure he was far enough away from the entrance, Harlow sat down on the dirty floor with a heavy sigh. He examined his shaking hands as he waited for his heart to slow down again. He had been chased out of the previous building by some variant with an electric buzzsaw; he had no choice but to run out into the courtyard.

Once calm enough to focus, Harlow observed his surroundings. He was certainly in one of the less cared for areas of the asylum; it looked like it had been left untouched for years.

It was quite dull, but a few specks of blood on the ground caught Harlow’s attention. Perhaps someone was injured recently; an easy kill.

Somewhat reluctantly, Harlow stood and shuffled toward the set of double doors the blood was collected in front of, dragging his hand along the wall of the corridor as he went.

As quietly as possible, he cracked one of the doors open and peeked inside. The first thing that registered to him were the ropes. There were ropes everywhere, but what was more interesting to Harlow was what was hanging from them.

Dozens of corpses hanging from the ceiling; what would be a nightmare to most was a dream to him. He lost his grip on the door, letting it swing open on its own. His agape mouth turned into a wild grin and he hurried into the room. Fumbling with the ropes, completely unconcerned with how the bodies got up to begin with and only caring about how to get them down, he carelessly let his guard drop.

“Darling?” A man spoke just as Harlow had untied one of the ropes, causing him to jump. The body came crashing to the ground and he faced the man on the other side of the room.

“What are you doing?!” He demanded, looking completely perplexed. Harlow was frozen in place, looking like a deer in headlights. The man questioning him was massive, likely nearing seven feet tall and heavily built. He had no chance against him.

While Harlow was considering his options, the other man pulled out a knife and began strolling towards him.

“A quiet one, aren’t you?” The man chuckled. “I value that in a woman. You’ll do nicely.”

Ignoring his strange statement, Harlow turned and bolted the other way, grateful to find an open vent nearby. He climbed inside and scrambled to the other end, ignoring to corpse lodged through one of the grates. He could eat later; for now, he had to get away from the blue-eyed giant.

Hopping out the other side, he checked over his shoulder to make sure the man hadn’t followed him through. With no sign of him, Harlow examined his surroundings.

He seemed to be in something of a kitchen, and it was dark; too dark for a normal human being to find their way around, but Harlow was a variant. The Engine had done strange things to him, and he could see with relative ease in the dark.

He hopped over a table blocking his way and continued through the only door in the room.

He was back where he had entered the building.

“Darling!”

Not even considering returning outside an option, Harlow chose to duck around the giant and run through where he had appeared. The man struck him as he ran by—thankfully not with his knife—and he felt his stitches pop as he was sent crashing to the floor. He quickly clambered to his feet and darted through the nearest door, slamming it shut behind him.

His one eye quickly examined the new area, and he found that he was in a locker room. Harlow could hear the giant singing as he shoved himself into one of the lockers, hoping he wouldn’t be willing to check each one.

One of his hands came up to feel at where the stitches had broken. They had been sloppily done to begin with, but now, it felt like if he just _pressed_ a little harder he could dig in and—

“My love, where did you go?” The giant questioned as he threw the door open. “I could make you _so_ beautiful…”

Harlow’s fingers left the open wound and he pressed himself against the back of the locker, listening to the man’s approaching footsteps.

“I’m sure you were just jealous of those strung up _whores,_ but I promise you I’ve forgotten all about them!” Harlow could hear the giant opening lockers as he spoke. “I _know_ you’re different…”

He felt his heart stop as the man stepped in front of the locker he was hiding in.

“Aren’t you?” He peered into the locker through the small gaps, intense blue eyes on Harlow’s one. Harlow might have marked the grin on the giants face as insane if he didn’t share the mental status.

He yelped as the man threw the locker door open and grabbed his neck protector, forcing him out of his hiding spot. He flinched as he saw the hand wielding the knife start towards his neck, but instead of being stabbed, the man grabbed the straps of his protector and began tugging him back out of the room.

Unprepared for the movement, Harlow lost his footing and fell back, nearly choking as the man dragged him away. He began clawing at the other man’s wrist, nearly cutting himself on the blade.

“Don’t worry, darling. I’ll take care of you.” The man glanced over his shoulder. “But before I can love you, there are a few things we need to get rid of.”

The giant dragged him passed the room of corpses and towards the entrance. Harlow began thrashing and twisting his body at the thought of going back outside.

“Darling, you really must learn to behave.” He scolded, stopping just before the doorway to outside. Harlow used this pause to get back to his feet while listening to what sounded like a door unlocking. He turned his head as much as he could with the man’s strong grip on his neck protector, and saw the giant opening the metal door to a stairwell.

Harlow was momentarily relieved that they weren’t going outside until the man began pulling him along again; he used the handrail to keep himself mostly upright as they climbed the stairs. He walked backwards as quickly as he could, trying to keep up with the man’s wide steps.

Harlow’s arms were held out awkwardly and he nearly knocked over some kind of mannequin with a dress as they walked, which the giant blamed him for. They passed several wedding dresses, drawings of dresses and sewing machines as they walked. Harlow didn’t pay much mind to them, however, and instead focused on trying to escape the man’s grip.

As they passed by one of the many massive shelves, Harlow reached out and curled his hands around one of the poles. Being met with resistance, the other man gave a hard tug on the straps, causing Harlow to choke.

“Darling, I need to _fix_ you before you can bear my children!” The giant began using both hands to try to pull him away from the shelf, but Harlow still clung to it. Another hard tug and the straps broke. His neck protector fell away, and instead of running, Harlow bolted up the shelf.

The giant threw the protector to the ground with a frustrated grunt as Harlow scooted towards the other end of the shelf, despite the fear that it would break under his weight. Perhaps it was a good thing he hadn’t eaten recently, Harlow considered.

“Now you’re just being _childish._ ” The man growled as Harlow coughed from the abuse his throat suffered. He paced in front of the shelf, his intense blue eyes never leaving the smaller man. “You’ve gone and gotten hurt due to your silly games.”

Harlow was thankful that the shelf was too large even for the giant to reach him, as well as for the vent his back was pressed against.

“Or are you just another whore?” The man stopped. “You want to leave me? Is that it?”

Harlow began trying to pry the cover of the vent off, no longer listening to the giant’s rambling. He tossed it aside while the giant screamed something. He crawled inside.

It was a couple turns and drops before he reached a cover he felt safe exiting. He kicked it off and crawled out of the vent. Leaning against the wall, he grasped at his throat, still in excruciating pain. He felt the need to cough but didn’t dare making noise with that giant still lurking around somewhere.

Speaking of which, he thought he really could hear the giant lumbering around. He had to strain to hear it, but he could. He was still rambling about sluts and whores. It was growing louder, quite quickly, in fact. Had he known where the vent led?

He couldn’t tell which direction he was coming from, so he opted to hide the dark corner of the hall while keeping an eye out for the other man. He bumped into something and heard a quiet but frightened shout.

It was another patient. He looked terrified, cowering and shivering, likely in fear of the giant. He looked so weak, and his neck; so _frail._ It occurred to Harlow that he had been chased out of the previous building while searching for food. He was starving, and he thought that if he just wrapped his hands around the other man’s throat and _squeezed_ he could—

“Darling!” Both men—startled by the voice—turned to look at him. “ _Whore!_ ” The giant shouted, shuffling towards the two. The weaker man shoved Harlow off of him and bolted, leaving him to deal with the brute. He stood to run in the same direction, but the giant was quick.

“You’re nobody’s mother!” He swung his knife and the blade caught Harlow’s shoulder. He cried out and clutched at the wound, but continued moving forward through the maze-like building, which seemed to make it easier to lose the giant. He slowed his pace until he was creeping along the halls.

He passed by bloody writing on the walls as he went. At first, he had assumed it to be the priest’s, but he quickly realized it was far too neat to be his. Still, he didn’t pause to read what it said, but it reminded him of the man the priest had asked him not to harm; his apostle, Harlow’s friend.

He thought about him as he continued through the building, hoping he hadn’t ended up as one of the corpses hanging in the large room previously. He eventually found himself in a cramped, bloody room. It was dark, save for the intense lights over a blood-covered table saw.

Harlow had a hard time navigating around the table and all the corpses, mannequins and wooden beams. He ducked under the limbs hanging from chains as his stomach growled. He would have stopped to feast on the corpses, but decided the room was too dangerous to be caught in if the giant found him.

He tried the door in the room, only to find that it was locked -- a dead end. His heart sped when he realized he would need to backtrack to find somewhere else to go, and risk running into the giant.

Reluctantly, he began tiptoeing back to where he had come from, only to find that the man was blocking his path.

“There you are, you filthy slut!” He yelled as he sprinted towards Harlow, who had turned and bolted upon seeing him. He nearly tripped over a corpse as he returned to the dead end, trying to get to the very back of the room. He waited for the giant to pick a side of the table to approach him around, and darted the opposite way, knocking over a few mannequins as he went.

He checked several doors as he backtracked, most of which were locked, causing him to take a couple hits from the large man (thankfully not with the knife). Eventually he found a new path to take, all while the man screamed profanities at him.

The new path gave Harlow some hope, even if he couldn’t seem to lose the giant. However, this was stripped of him upon reaching another dead end in a tight area with nothing but a broken window leading back into the courtyard. Harlow checked over his shoulder; the giant was a distance away but catching up quickly.

Too late to turn back, Harlow peered out of the window, checking the distance between it and the ground. It didn’t seem too far, he would likely get away with his legs intact. Glancing over his shoulder once more, he compared getting stabbed to death and going back outside.

Being stabbed almost seemed preferable. Almost.

He took a few steps back and sucked in a shaky breath.

“What are you doing? No, no! Don’t!” The giant shouted after Harlow as he leaped through the window. Pain shot up through his ankle upon landing and he fell forward onto his hands, he groaned as his body curled in pain. He heard a frustrated growl from the man and looked over his shoulder, trying to see him despite the fog.

“Fine! Go! You’re just like all the others!” He shouted out the window before receding back into the building. Harlow sighed and let his body collapse to the ground.

He stayed like that for a while, until his stomach growled to remind him that he had been searching for food initially. With a grunt of pain, he forced himself onto his feet and hobbled deeper into the courtyard.


End file.
